There has been considerable interest worldwide in the patterning of functionalized nanowires--which excel both in semiconductivity and as catalyzers--due to the potential application of such materials in nanodevice construction. Establishing a versatile approach to make functionalized nanowires, with a particular need to controlling spatial patterning, has been seen as essential.
Brain
A long-term follow-up study of 3050 twins from the Finnish Twin Cohort has shown that midlife, moderately vigorous physical activity is associated with better cognition at old age. The association was statistically independent of midlife hypertension, smoking, education level, sex, obesity and binge drinking. "his suggests that the beneficial influence of physical activity on the brain and cognition is not solely based on decreasing vascular risk factors", says researcher Paula Iso-Markku from the University of Helsinki.
In a recent research article entitled "Synaptic mechanisms of pattern completion in the hippocampal CA3 network", published on September 9, 2016, in Science, Jose Guzman, Alois Schlögl, Michael Frotscher, and Peter Jonas have investigated these mechanisms by combining functional connectivity analysis and network modeling. Their findings suggest that the rules of synaptic connectivity between CA3 pyramidal cells contribute to the remarkable efficiency of pattern completion.
A new study indicates that playing video games for a limited amount of time each week may provide benefits to children, but too much can be detrimental. The findings are published in the Annals of Neurology.
There's much debate over the potential benefits and risks of video gaming in children and teens. To provide some clarity, Jesus Pujol, MD, of the Hospital del Mar in Spain, and his colleagues investigated the relationship between weekly video game use and certain cognitive abilities and conduct-related problems.
Scientists from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) and the Peruvian Instituto de Investigación Nutricional (IIN) adapted the urban-based Peruvian National Early Child Development Programme (Wawa Wasi) and brought it to the doorstep of people living in the rural Cajamarca region.
KOBE, JAPAN, September 9, 2016 - The world's population of older adults is expected to double to 2 billion by 2050. With these unprecedented demographic changes, the potential for fraud associated with cognitive decline is becoming a pressing issue in the financial services industry.
A misunderstanding of how the certain parts of the brain function has hampered the creation of pharmaceuticals to effectively address fear and anxiety disorders, a pair of researchers has concluded. Their analysis, which appears in the latest issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, also offers new insights into neurological processes, with the aim of overcoming existing barriers to drug development.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Volunteers who started an experiment feeling neutral about certain faces they saw ended up unknowingly adopting the feelings that scientists induced via an MRI feedback technique, according to newly published research.
DURHAM, N.C. -- In 1959, a scientist named Edward Gray showed that the miniscule gaps between neurons where chemical messages are sent, called synapses, come in two main varieties, which researchers later dubbed "excitatory" and "inhibitory."
PHILADELPHIA - A study of a new mouse model identifies a drug target that has the potential to increase social interaction in individuals with some forms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The team published their work in Biological Psychiatry.
Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have located an intracellular defect that they believe is probably common to all forms of Parkinson's disease.
This defect, which precedes the death of a group of nerve cells whose loss is the hallmark of the condition, play a critical role in triggering that die-off.
An intriguing finding in nematode worms suggests that having a little bit of extra fat may help reduce the risk of developing some neurodegenerative diseases, such as Huntington's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.
What these illnesses have in common is that they're caused by abnormal proteins that accummulate in or between brain cells to form plaques, producing damage that causes mental decline and early death.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- When asked to visualize your childhood home, you can probably picture not only the house you lived in, but also the buildings next door and across the street. MIT neuroscientists have now identified two brain regions that are involved in creating these panoramic memories.
These brain regions help us to merge fleeting views of our surroundings into a seamless, 360-degree panorama, the researchers say.
Scientists from Jerusalem and Duesseldorf have succeeded in generating induced pluripotent stem cells from a rare disorder called Nijmegen breakage syndrome (NBS) and to push these cells to become early neurons, revealing the mechanisms leading to the neurological phenotype observed in these patients.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- If you're a human who's really hungry, a handful of nuts, a piece of cheese or a nice juicy steak may really hit the spot. If you're a fruit fly, a nibble of yeast will do the trick.
Why do we - and those flies that sometimes inhabit our kitchens - seek out protein-full foods when we're running on empty? And what does that preference mean for the odds of living a longer life, whether it's measured in decades for a human, or days for a fly?